Recording - January 2018 - 38

Keith
McMillen
Instruments

BopPad

A percussion controller that's affordable,
flexible, and incredibly expressive
REVIEW BY PAUL VNUK JR.

K

eith McMillen is an electronic instrument designer: not
electronic sounds, but the instruments themselves. Over
a 35-year career he has been responsible for the Zeta
electric violin, advances in MIDI guitar, and his current company
Keith McMillen Instruments (KMI) offers some of the most unique
alternate controllers on the market. This includes the SoftStep and
12 Step foot controllers, the QuNeo control surface, the QuNexus
and K-Board portable controller keyboards, and most recently the
K-Mix digital mixer/DAW controller/audio interface, reviewed
by Mike Metlay in our March 2017 issue.
KMI products are attention-grabbing with their lightweight durable
black enclosures filled with brightly lit multicolored keys, sliders,
and buttons made from the company's "smart fabric" sensor
technology. They are beautiful to look at and even better to touch!
KMI's latest product is the BopPad, a multizone MIDI drum pad
that makes the most of KMI's smart fabric. I had several weeks to
check it out, and-spoiler alert-I had a killer time.

A smart drum pad

The BopPad measures 10 1/4" in diameter with a 8" playing
surface and is only 3/8" thick. At first glance it looks and feels
like a high-tech percussion practice pad. At its top is a small
red metal guard that protects the only I/O port on the unit-a
Micro-B USB port. It also sports a small indicator LED that lights
up green when connected and orange when the pad is struck.
The white playing surface is marked off by black lines into
four playable quadrants, and underneath are the BopPad's
Smart Fabric sensors. According to KMI, this is the most refined
version of said technology yet; it's capable of a mere
3-millisecond latency and has a wide dynamic playing range.
Each quadrant can trigger or play a single sound, but each sound
can be built of up to six assignable MIDI notes and up to five MIDI
38

RECORDING January 2018

Control Change messages including pitch bend, channel pressure,
poly aftertouch, or any assignable MIDI CC number you choose.
The BopPad works in three dimensions and responds to velocity
(strikes, taps and hits), pressure (how hard you hold and press,
like a synthesizer key) and radius (i.e. the location where you
strike, hold and press). All of these can be assigned to the
above MIDI messages. You can even set the BopPad to control
virtual instrument parameters in your DAW. In this way, sliding
your finger across or around a quadrant can add or alter
delay and reverb, filter effects, and more.

Controlling the BopPad

Despite having no controls whatsoever, the BopPad is quite
editable under its thin hood, thanks to its editor software. The
editor can be used natively on macOS or Windows or simply
pulled up as an online editor in any web MIDI-capable browser.
From my tests on a Macbook Pro and my studio's iMac, I found
zero functional differences between onboard and online.
Aside from assigning the abovementioned note values and
MIDI control parameters, you can also fine-tune the strike
density, sensitivity, and velocity curves, complete with user
tables to fit your playing style and needs.
You can store your preferences to one of four onboard slots,
which can be accessed in the software or through MIDI
Program Change messages from a DAW or other controller.
There are also great starting presets for hand play, stick play,
universal mode, and a unison mode that sets all four quadrants
to the same settings, making the BopPad one big drum pad.

In use

Out of the box the BopPad is happy to sit on the table or in your
lap. You can also mount it to a cymbal stand with an optional
holder/mount called the BopPad Mount, which has an 8mm thread.
Setting up the BopPad is pure plug and play; it is
class-compliant and requires no special drivers. Once
plugged in, it should be seen instantly as a choice in your
DAW or with your virtual instruments. You can also use it to
trigger old-school MIDI hardware devices when used with
KMI's MIDI Expander kit. In fact, the BopPad's control routings
are so easy to change, you can have different quadrants trigger
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - January 2018
